New developments on Syria: An unexpected rabbit

When someone pulls a rabbit out of a hat, it's natural
to be suspicious. Magicians are professionals in deceit – and so are diplomats.
But sometimes the rabbit is real.

On Monday morning, the world was heading into the
biggest crisis in years: a looming American attack on Syria, a Russian response
that could set off the first major confrontation between Washington and Moscow
since the Cold War, and the possible spread of the fighting from Syria to
neighboring countries. Or alternatively, a congressional rejection of President
Barack Obama's plans that would have left him a lame duck for the next three
years.

By Tuesday morning all that had changed. A Russian
proposal for Syria to get rid of all its chemical weapons was promptly accepted
by the Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, and the Senate vote on
Obama's planned strikes on Syria was postponed, probably for weeks. If Syria
keeps its word, the vote may never be held. What a difference a day makes.

Now for the cavils. Nothing has been signed. Nothing
has even been written up for signature. Maybe Syria is just playing for time.
Perhaps Obama will want to pursue the Syrian regime legally for the poison gas
attacks that he claims it has already carried out (though he sounded very
relieved on hearing the news and didn't mention any "red lines").

The sequence of events, so far as can be made out, was
as follows. At the Moscow G20 summit last week, Obama and Russian President
Vladimir Putin had a one-to-one chat on the side at which one of them broached
the possibility of persuading Syria to give up its chemical weapons entirely.
Which one isn't clear, and the idea was not pursued by either of them.

Yet both men had reason to want such a thing, for the
alternative was that Obama would lead the United States into another Middle
Eastern war, not exactly what he was elected for – or that he would not get
congressional approval to do so and end up completely discredited. Putin would
feel obliged to respond to a U.S. attack on his Syrian ally, but that could end
up with Russian missiles shooting down American planes.

There was then silence until Monday, when John Kerry,
the U.S. Secretary of State, gave an off-the-cuff reply in London to a question
about whether Syria's President Bashar al-Assad could avoid an American attack.
"Sure. He could turn over every bit of his (chemical) weapons to the
international community within the next week, without delay," said Kerry with a
shrug. "But he isn't about to."

Then Kerry got on a plane to fly home, and halfway
across the Atlantic he got a call from the Russian foreign minister, Sergei
Lavrov, saying that he was about to announce that Russia would ask Syria to put
all its chemical weapons storage facilities under international control, join
the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and finally destroy
them all.

The Syrian foreign minister happened to be in Moscow,
so within an hour he declared that Assad's regime "welcomes Russia's initiative,
based on the Syrian government's care about the lives of our people and
security of our country." By Monday evening, Obama was saying that the Russian
plan "could potentially be a significant breakthrough," and the pot was off the
boil.

The whole thing, therefore, was made up on the fly.
That doesn't necessarily mean that it won't work, but it is a proposal that
comes without any of the usual preparation that precedes a major diplomatic
initiative. The reason we don't know the details is that there aren't any. What
we do know is that everybody – Obama, Putin and Assad – is clearly desperate to
avoid going to war, and that gives us reason to hope.

Two things that have to happen fast, if this rabbit is
really going to run. First, Syria has to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention
and ratify the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention right away. That could
be done within a week, and it would legally commit it to getting rid of all its
chemical weapons and the factories that make them.

Secondly, the U.N. Security Council has to pass a
resolution demanding that Syria reveal the size and location of its entire
stock of chemical weapons and place them under international control. France
has already put such a resolution on the Security Council's agenda; the test will
be whether Russia vetoes it. It probably won't.

There is a great deal of suspicion in Washington that
this is merely a delaying tactic meant to stall an American attack and sap the
already weak popular support in the United States for military action. Moreover,
it will be hard to send international troops in to secure Syria's chemical
weapons (at least 40 storage sites, plus some weapons in the hands of military
units) unless there is a ceasefire in the civil war now raging all over the
country.

But the American military will be pleased, because
they were really unhappy about the job that Obama was giving them, and Obama
himself looks like a man who has been granted a new lease of life. There will
be time to try to make this work.

Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist whose articles are published in
45 countries.